MANCHESTER - 7
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The days of Cathay, South African, QANTAS, Air Canada and all are not going to come back because each of these airlines can offer a codeshare through a STAR ALLIANCE or ONEWORLD hub without fragmenting the UK market by offering service outside London. Hence Cathay and QANTAS are sold connecting on the BA Shuttle and South African and United sell seats on the BMI route over Heathrow. Why would any legacy airline in the Alliance structure serve Manchester when every effort is being put into making Heathrow work as the Alliances UK gateway.
United aren't interested, Cathay balked, South African couldn't do it, Air India lost money. Look at who's left. Non alliance members and strong connections over a US hub with a US airline. Who's left on the wish list?
United aren't interested, Cathay balked, South African couldn't do it, Air India lost money. Look at who's left. Non alliance members and strong connections over a US hub with a US airline. Who's left on the wish list?
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Yes Heathrow is to be Britain's main alliance hub, but it is a very unpleasant airport. All I can say is that I hope Heathrow's improvements are good!
Having said that it's not difficult to avoid Heathrow and usual with better flight times, when I was working for a previous employer in Damascus I would fly in to Stansted via Istanbul with Turkish and it was often less expensive, I even convinced my company to do the same. It is easy for Manchester travellers to transit Newark, Atlanta, Paris, Dubai, Frankfurt, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Istanbul which brings us to the stumbling point for a lot of the alliance airlines:
Why on earth would UK regional passengers make TWO connections (e.g down to Heathrow on BMI, Chicago on United and then on to your final US destination) when they could go to Newark and make the short regional flight from there. A lot of passengers search on price so in order to entice passengers through Heathrow instead of EWR or CDG those had better be low.
Having said that it's not difficult to avoid Heathrow and usual with better flight times, when I was working for a previous employer in Damascus I would fly in to Stansted via Istanbul with Turkish and it was often less expensive, I even convinced my company to do the same. It is easy for Manchester travellers to transit Newark, Atlanta, Paris, Dubai, Frankfurt, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Istanbul which brings us to the stumbling point for a lot of the alliance airlines:
Why on earth would UK regional passengers make TWO connections (e.g down to Heathrow on BMI, Chicago on United and then on to your final US destination) when they could go to Newark and make the short regional flight from there. A lot of passengers search on price so in order to entice passengers through Heathrow instead of EWR or CDG those had better be low.
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as soon as a fast train link is available between manchester and heathrow/gatwick i am sure BA will dump the shuttles without delay.still feeds the connecting traffic to longhaul routes and appeases the enviromental campaigners by greatly reducing the number of UK internal flights.the sooner we get a fast train link to heathrow T5 the better.as a regular user of T5,i must say it is now a delight to travel through.it leaves every other terminal in the Uk way,way behind.and before you say it,the flights arrive and depart pretty much ontime and my luggage has always arrived and pretty quickly as well.
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Train?
The train idea.. that would work very well if they got something going like Air France have with the TGV (a train-air codeshare).
Although this is a very interesting subject I should probably not discuss train-air codesharing on the Manchester airport forum!
Anyway BA wouldn't drop Manchester-Heathrow if only for the point to point domestic travellers, some people just prefer to fly domestic than train.
Although this is a very interesting subject I should probably not discuss train-air codesharing on the Manchester airport forum!
Anyway BA wouldn't drop Manchester-Heathrow if only for the point to point domestic travellers, some people just prefer to fly domestic than train.
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United aren't interested, Cathay balked, South African couldn't do it, Air India lost money
Put the boot on the other foot, and if MAN was the major airport with the econmic powerhouse up here and London was just an "ordinary" town, how would you feel if you were told that "sorry, the interests of passenger convenience aren't paramount and you must route through MAN at all times"?
I'm all in favour of the "fast train link" provided those who want it fund it; I doubt it would make that much of an impact on the longer domestic route into LHR- what did BA say, just 3% of the total number of flights would go in the event of MAN and LBA flight being scrapped, and they'd be replaced by other flights.
DAr19 hits the nail on the head when why would anyone want to route 2 stop to somewhere when it's possible to do it 1 stop. Having alliances should make it easier for the regional cities to have non-stop links with the world...how can focusing in one airport only be of benefit to any alliance?
Strangely enough, QF's subsidiary Jetstar makes plenty of noises about coming to MAN. Might not be "mainline" but at least they realise that by not serving the bulk of the country, they're just handing over money to those airlines that do and therefore will attempt to do something about it.
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What a laugh, if anyone thinks there is gonna to be a train link to LHR/LGW from MAN, you are in cloud cuckoo land. Anyway, even if there was such a service, MAN pax who are connecting onto L/Haul would for sure use other routes eg AMS, DBX......... MAN pax don’t want to mess at LHR no matter how good T5 is. BA, BMI and who ever chose to focus there business in the south east do at there peril as oversees airlines will only gain from MAN and other UK regional airports.[/font]
Last edited by parky747; 16th Nov 2008 at 02:18.
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Well said Parky, most people want to fly direct, who want's to make connections unless they have to ????? There's more to the UK than just the South East, hence sensible airlines have bases all around the country.
P
P
Train link
There's already a direct train (i.e. no changes) 4 times per weekday between Manchester Piccadilly and Gatwick stopping at Birmingham on the way. BA might face rather more competition if the train took a bit less than 4h 45
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The Manchester - Birmingham - Gatwick train will be withdrawn by Cross Country from the December timetable. Usually quicker to go cross - London ( Euston- Victoria) anyway.
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Totally off topic, but...
Has anyone ever wondered why is the MAN thread sooooooo popular ?
The number of posts goes up like the UK national debt ! No other thread comes close - ever !
We talk about allsorts of nonsense on here, not seen, or cared about, on other Airport threads ! Nevermind some of the rumours that surface....
Posters also seem to care a lot about MAN, as if it were supporting a football team, which I am not knocking - I'm as bad as the next man, I'm just commenting that MAN has more than its fair share of interest and supporters, which seems a bit odd to me, as I cant think of a particular reason why !!
Has anyone ever wondered why is the MAN thread sooooooo popular ?
The number of posts goes up like the UK national debt ! No other thread comes close - ever !
We talk about allsorts of nonsense on here, not seen, or cared about, on other Airport threads ! Nevermind some of the rumours that surface....
Posters also seem to care a lot about MAN, as if it were supporting a football team, which I am not knocking - I'm as bad as the next man, I'm just commenting that MAN has more than its fair share of interest and supporters, which seems a bit odd to me, as I cant think of a particular reason why !!
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egcc
'Has anyone ever wondered why is the MAN thread sooooooo popular ?
The number of posts goes up like the UK national debt ! No other thread comes close - ever !
We talk about allsorts of nonsense on here, not seen, or cared about, on other Airport threads ! Nevermind some of the rumours that surface....
Posters also seem to care a lot about MAN, as if it were supporting a football team, which I am not knocking - I'm as bad as the next man, I'm just commenting that MAN has more than its fair share of interest and supporters, which seems a bit odd to me, as I cant think of a particular reason why !!'
Its because ALL northeners have a 'chip' on their shoulder
MM
'Has anyone ever wondered why is the MAN thread sooooooo popular ?
The number of posts goes up like the UK national debt ! No other thread comes close - ever !
We talk about allsorts of nonsense on here, not seen, or cared about, on other Airport threads ! Nevermind some of the rumours that surface....
Posters also seem to care a lot about MAN, as if it were supporting a football team, which I am not knocking - I'm as bad as the next man, I'm just commenting that MAN has more than its fair share of interest and supporters, which seems a bit odd to me, as I cant think of a particular reason why !!'
Its because ALL northeners have a 'chip' on their shoulder
MM
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TK at BHX and MAN?
In the BHX thread StoneyBridge Radar wrote,
Strange this was only posted on the BHX tread yet it apparently involves MAN too?
Lets hope that yet another airline is struggling at MAN? Regional flying is having a hard time at the moment
Daza
I was told today that Turkish are far from happy with advance bookings for the BHX and the performance of the 2nd MAN service.
Is this going to be another example of consolidation and reduction?
Is this going to be another example of consolidation and reduction?
Lets hope that yet another airline is struggling at MAN? Regional flying is having a hard time at the moment
Daza
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If they do have a chip on their shoulder, it's because the South East of England is seen as the only important area of the UK - especially by those who live in the South East.
Historically, the North of England has produced by far the greater percentage the inventions, material, products and many of the people that made Britain into Great Britain yet the wealth has always been sucked to that small corner of the UK called the South East.
Geographically, the North of England has just as large a population as the South East yet is seen by those in power as not important - basically because those in power are based in London and are only interested in themselves.
When Manchester twice bid for the Olympics, very little support came from the South East - I was living in Sussex at the time - and the bids were almost an object of derision and were firmly kept as "Manchester's bids" in the public mind by government and media alike. Yet when a run down area of east London was decided upon as the venue for a London bid for the games, not only was the country as a whole urged to rally behind the bid, we were told in no uncertain terms just how important the accompanying regeneration of the area was for the country - rather strange that, when for decades, the South has maintained the North is a run down, dirty, post industrial wasteland that needs help the country can't really afford.
Of course the Commonwealth Games in 2002 showed just how well the "thick" Northerners can run something on an international scale, and a great number of the medals gained by team GB at the 2008 Olympics were generated in the swimming pools around Manchester and at the Manchester Velodrome.
As someone who spent a great deal of his working life promoting the Manchester area for incoming business travel and development, who was in regular close contact with government department policy makers at a high level and had an input to the development of the airport, and who saw at first hand how BEA/BOAC/BA tried to block every opportunity for Manchester Airport to develop its own services (which goes back well before my time), I have a close and detailed knowledge of just how the levers have been pulled to put London above, not just the North but anywhere else in the UK, whilst expecting support for London and the South East to be given by the whole country.
In the case of air travel from Manchester, just research how BEA objected to every Eagle/Cunard Eagle/British Eagle licence application from Manchester to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, was mostly successful in doing so yet refused to offer more than a few token services themselves. Check back on how BOAC drove SABENA off the New York route 11 years after the Belgians, who had faith in Manchester where London didn't, had pioneered and made a success of their operation. The same applies to BEA's work in persuading the government to deny Aer Lingus's long held and profitable fifth freedom rights through Manchester in the late 1960s.
To the proponents of Heathrow and Heathrow Airways, if you want to know just how much not just the North, but the rest of the UK would gladly be without Heathrow, just look at the success of flights from the UK to Amsterdam - many taken by people for whom Amsterdam is in the wrong direction to their final destination.
As a retired CEO I'm well aware of the need for profitable operation. Manchester will not generate volume high fare traffic for many reasons but one particular reason is the way BA and its partners and the other alliances sell their tickets to companies, either direct or through in house travel agents, with an emphasis on ensuring London departures are maintained with as large a volume of first/business class seats as possible. This includes heavy discounting of fares on connecting flights, the loading of fares on direct flights from the provinces and the offer of massive discounts on hotel rooms if an overnight is necessary in London.
As most business travellers have neither the time nor the authority to make their own arrangements and as the bottom line outcome of the deals on offer can be shown to be of financial benefit, the practice of putting as much as possible through Heathrow has been embraced by companies all over the UK. The wear and tear on the traveller due to having to make connections, miss flights or their own free time due to delays, wholesale cancellations (BA are the experts) or journey times hours longer than would be necessary on direct flights is overlooked as long as the bottom line looks OK.
In my view - now from 400 miles from Manchester - the reason this thread is always well subscribed is that people in the North, and Manchester in particular, CARE about their services. The airport company is still owned by the local authorities, rather than an unapproachable, unaccountable Spanish entity so the council tax payers are involved and want their say. They also get sick of the patronising attitude of Southerners withl little or no knowledge of the area, its history, geography or demographics who assume that all in the South is clean, tidy and comfortable and all in the North is dirty, post industrial and verging on a wasteland.
Historically, the North of England has produced by far the greater percentage the inventions, material, products and many of the people that made Britain into Great Britain yet the wealth has always been sucked to that small corner of the UK called the South East.
Geographically, the North of England has just as large a population as the South East yet is seen by those in power as not important - basically because those in power are based in London and are only interested in themselves.
When Manchester twice bid for the Olympics, very little support came from the South East - I was living in Sussex at the time - and the bids were almost an object of derision and were firmly kept as "Manchester's bids" in the public mind by government and media alike. Yet when a run down area of east London was decided upon as the venue for a London bid for the games, not only was the country as a whole urged to rally behind the bid, we were told in no uncertain terms just how important the accompanying regeneration of the area was for the country - rather strange that, when for decades, the South has maintained the North is a run down, dirty, post industrial wasteland that needs help the country can't really afford.
Of course the Commonwealth Games in 2002 showed just how well the "thick" Northerners can run something on an international scale, and a great number of the medals gained by team GB at the 2008 Olympics were generated in the swimming pools around Manchester and at the Manchester Velodrome.
As someone who spent a great deal of his working life promoting the Manchester area for incoming business travel and development, who was in regular close contact with government department policy makers at a high level and had an input to the development of the airport, and who saw at first hand how BEA/BOAC/BA tried to block every opportunity for Manchester Airport to develop its own services (which goes back well before my time), I have a close and detailed knowledge of just how the levers have been pulled to put London above, not just the North but anywhere else in the UK, whilst expecting support for London and the South East to be given by the whole country.
In the case of air travel from Manchester, just research how BEA objected to every Eagle/Cunard Eagle/British Eagle licence application from Manchester to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, was mostly successful in doing so yet refused to offer more than a few token services themselves. Check back on how BOAC drove SABENA off the New York route 11 years after the Belgians, who had faith in Manchester where London didn't, had pioneered and made a success of their operation. The same applies to BEA's work in persuading the government to deny Aer Lingus's long held and profitable fifth freedom rights through Manchester in the late 1960s.
To the proponents of Heathrow and Heathrow Airways, if you want to know just how much not just the North, but the rest of the UK would gladly be without Heathrow, just look at the success of flights from the UK to Amsterdam - many taken by people for whom Amsterdam is in the wrong direction to their final destination.
As a retired CEO I'm well aware of the need for profitable operation. Manchester will not generate volume high fare traffic for many reasons but one particular reason is the way BA and its partners and the other alliances sell their tickets to companies, either direct or through in house travel agents, with an emphasis on ensuring London departures are maintained with as large a volume of first/business class seats as possible. This includes heavy discounting of fares on connecting flights, the loading of fares on direct flights from the provinces and the offer of massive discounts on hotel rooms if an overnight is necessary in London.
As most business travellers have neither the time nor the authority to make their own arrangements and as the bottom line outcome of the deals on offer can be shown to be of financial benefit, the practice of putting as much as possible through Heathrow has been embraced by companies all over the UK. The wear and tear on the traveller due to having to make connections, miss flights or their own free time due to delays, wholesale cancellations (BA are the experts) or journey times hours longer than would be necessary on direct flights is overlooked as long as the bottom line looks OK.
In my view - now from 400 miles from Manchester - the reason this thread is always well subscribed is that people in the North, and Manchester in particular, CARE about their services. The airport company is still owned by the local authorities, rather than an unapproachable, unaccountable Spanish entity so the council tax payers are involved and want their say. They also get sick of the patronising attitude of Southerners withl little or no knowledge of the area, its history, geography or demographics who assume that all in the South is clean, tidy and comfortable and all in the North is dirty, post industrial and verging on a wasteland.
Last edited by philbky; 18th Nov 2008 at 08:45.
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Hear, hear Philkby
I have far better things to do with my time than hang around that overcrowded inconvenient slum just off the M4.
Any airline that takes me direct will get my custom in favour of LHR, LGW etc.
We have hardly ever used it without concomitant factors such as hotel stops, luggage missing connections, etc, etc, becoming involved.
Operators and their bean counters may wish us onto their flights that artificially boost the "need" for bigger south east airports, but in the end the market itself will win out - and as a certain market orientated leaderene said - you can't buck it.
I have far better things to do with my time than hang around that overcrowded inconvenient slum just off the M4.
Any airline that takes me direct will get my custom in favour of LHR, LGW etc.
We have hardly ever used it without concomitant factors such as hotel stops, luggage missing connections, etc, etc, becoming involved.
Operators and their bean counters may wish us onto their flights that artificially boost the "need" for bigger south east airports, but in the end the market itself will win out - and as a certain market orientated leaderene said - you can't buck it.
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But what makes me 'laugh' about the difference between LHR & MAN, Is not many people actually enjoy travelling thru LHR?
So why do they or their companies use it?
Maybe they don't think about MAN?
I think BA & BMI are partly to blame for taking the business away from MAN, Flying over a dozen flights a day down to LHR.
You have to be honest and say there are too many LHR flights from MAN.
Maybe if there was about 7 flights a day by both BA & BMI, Then it would give MAN the chance to send it's pax direct on other potential flights?
BA & BMI are not the only carriers taking pax away, AF, KL also fly alot of daily flights to their hubs.
A no win situation for MAN it seems?
So why do they or their companies use it?
Maybe they don't think about MAN?
I think BA & BMI are partly to blame for taking the business away from MAN, Flying over a dozen flights a day down to LHR.
You have to be honest and say there are too many LHR flights from MAN.
Maybe if there was about 7 flights a day by both BA & BMI, Then it would give MAN the chance to send it's pax direct on other potential flights?
BA & BMI are not the only carriers taking pax away, AF, KL also fly alot of daily flights to their hubs.
A no win situation for MAN it seems?
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I don't know why so many people complain about LHR. I have used T5/T3 and T2 just last week. I was on the M25 within 30 minutes of landing.
Couldn't ask any more of any airline or airport.
Couldn't ask any more of any airline or airport.
Join Date: Aug 2002
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Oh get real. BA screwed PIK in the 1960s and 1970s, and similar in MAN objecting to every application from competitors. This is 2008.
BA have almost gone and MAN now has better options to connect to the world with the US carriers and the Middle East airlines. Who exactly do you guys expect to operate into MAN that you don't already have? You have all the major long haul you're going to get I think, a fine network it is too.
BMI never wanted to fly long haul from MAN, they made the best of a bad deal when they lost the chance to base them at LHR and had 3 A330s and nowhere to fly them.
The last new jet BA brought to MAN would be BAC111 G-BGKG in the early 1980s!! Everything since has been second hand or a LHR hand me down.
A lot of business travellers fly BA for the BA Miles, BMI users are STAR Aliiance customers who have loyalty cards a lot of the time. Removing that option is your idea of boosting business from MAN?
BA have almost gone and MAN now has better options to connect to the world with the US carriers and the Middle East airlines. Who exactly do you guys expect to operate into MAN that you don't already have? You have all the major long haul you're going to get I think, a fine network it is too.
BMI never wanted to fly long haul from MAN, they made the best of a bad deal when they lost the chance to base them at LHR and had 3 A330s and nowhere to fly them.
The last new jet BA brought to MAN would be BAC111 G-BGKG in the early 1980s!! Everything since has been second hand or a LHR hand me down.
Maybe if there was about 7 flights a day by both BA & BMI, Then it would give MAN the chance to send it's pax direct on other potential flights